Thursday, August 19, 2010

Life Lessons Preschool: Be Kind and Inclusive

--Life Lessons Preschool--  
Everything I want my children to know before they start school

Lesson 9

"Always be kind and include others."


Including others in your play was a lesson that my parents taught us early on.  I might have taken it too far one day when I thought that a boy in my class was teasing a girl for being overweight.  Somehow I ended up kicking him, and we were both disciplined for fighting and had to miss recess!  He told me later that he wasn't making fun of her after all...oops.


This pattern of drawing others in to my circle of friends regardless of their status in society continued into my work-life as well.  While I was a guest producer at CNN, it was my job to spend most of my time with powerful, influential, famous people, but I often still found myself drawn to and preferring the company of the people who flew under the radar.  





At CNN, these people were the security guards, whose sense of humor I truly enjoyed, and the girls who worked at the Station Cafe on the first floor of our building.  During a particularly stressful day, I liked to take a break down at the cafe just to enjoy their cheery smiles and kind nature.  To be honest, their thick accents made it difficult to communicate sometimes, but a smile transcends language barriers.


One day, they started asking me what it was like "upstairs".  I was shocked to learn that they had never been on a tour of the newsroom.  This news surprised me, because pretty much everyone at CNN ate down at their cafe.  These girls served up breakfast and lunch for us every day.  I thought that surely, at some point, someone would have invited them into our "home", but not so.








To be fair, it was easy for me to do this, since a major part of my job was escorting guests around the studios!  I could give them access to areas that other people could not.  So I arranged to take them around behind the scenes of CNN.  


Wolf Blitzer was actually standing behind me in line when I extended the invitation, and he took time out of his schedule to visit with them and pose for a picture on set.  The bureau chief came down to greet them in the green room, and they were given the royal treatment by the make-up artists before their tour.  It was really cool.  The girls were thrilled.  And I think it was a special memory for everyone who worked at CNN too.  This experience was one of my most memorable at CNN, because it made me feel so good inside, and I was happy to do something to show my friends how special they were and how much they meant to all of us.





Looking at these old photos makes me miss them.
I think I will send them a letter.


2 comments:

  1. "you're a shining star" who figured how to make the light shine on others.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love your life lessons and the stories you share to go with them.

    What a great experience this was for you (and for the others you befriended).

    ReplyDelete